Mostly Monday Reads: Mass Deportation and Fascism

“The Trump campaign kicks into high gear.” John Buss, @repeat1968″

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

How the Presidential Race is neck and neck is beyond my comprehension. I will quote from The Bulwark’s William Kristol again for the nitty gritty numbers.  “Trump’s Midnight In America. He’s not hiding his authoritarianism. He’s selling it.”

“Three weeks and a day until election day, and this thing is tied, tied, tied. Nate Silver’s polling average has Kamala Harris up a tick under three points nationally—which might give Donald Trump the barest of edges at this moment in the Electoral College. Meanwhile, the last stragglers are starting to tune in: This race gets decided now. Happy Monday.”

A friend from back in the day suggested I watch this Bulwark Podcast from last week. I did last night. “He’s TRULY AWFUL in EVERY Way, Don’t Let Him Off the Hook (w/ Timothy Snyder) | The Bulwark Podcast.”  Tim Miller, who is from up the road from me in the Freret neighborhood, defines freedom well with Dr. Tim Snyder.  Snyder also uses his background in fascism, which typified a lot of Western thought before and during World War 2.  Snyder also let slip that we know Trump’s German family there stayed served and included a few NAZI war criminals. That didn’t surprise me in the least.

I’m beyond shocked by anything that comes out of DonOld and his cult, including “Swastika Flags being flown in Trump’s Boat Parade in Florida.” This Newsweek headline popped up minutes after starting this post.

A boat bearing swastika symbols and Donald Trump flags was hosed down after trying to join a Trump boat parade in Jupiter, Florida.

The boat was photographed attempting to take part in the parade on Sunday in the Republican presidential candidate’s home county of Palm Beach.

One onlooker, Lesley Abravnel, posted on social platform X at 1:49 p.m. eastern time: “Near Palm Beach right now. All Nazis are Trump voters. Sickening.” Abravnel, who has 70,000 followers and supports Kamala Harris, posted two pictures of five people on board a boat with Nazi flags.

“How is Trump winning the US immigration debate? | Anywhere but Washington”

Joy Reid posted this on Threads yesterday.  “Explain #latinosfortrump to me, like I’m five.”  I had to respond with a video I found last night that blew my mind. You can watch the short part on the video link or get the entire gist of things by watching the video below. What you will see is this Mexican immigrant who bragged that she came in legally and says that all of her cousins, nieces, and nephews who have been here for decades should be deported.  They are angry at her and won’t speak to her, but she laughs.  I guess she thinks it won’t happen to her.  But she is wrong.

With border crossings reaching record highs in recent years, US immigration has returned as the election’s most toxic issue. As Donald Trump continues to push a policy of mass deportation, and Kamala Harris responds by shifting further to the right, what happens to the people caught in the middle trying to seek a better life? The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone head to Arizona’s southern border with Mexico to investigate

By the time I got to writing this post, I had to add an additional source to my comment to Joy.  This is from Lisa Needham, who is writing for Public Notice. “Trump targets immigrants legally in US for deportation.  Having protected status may not save you.”  If DonOld gets elected, that lady will get a big surprise as she will be herded up with the family that now hates her and left to languish in a country that she doesn’t know anymore.

As the 2024 election heads into the home stretch, Donald Trump and JD Vance are doing what they do best: whipping up a racist campaign of hate against immigrants.

Of course, Trump has always done this, from the moment in 2015 when he descended Trump Tower’s gaudy gold escalator and declared that Mexico was sending rapists and people who bring drugs and crime. But it took teaming up with Vance, a proponent of the great replacement theory that Democrats are overseeing an influx of migrants to create more Democratic voters, to really kick things into high gear.

Now, both Trump and Vance are making clear that they will not limit their mass deportation scheme to undocumented immigrants.

“They have to go back to where they came from, I’m sorry,” Trump said of Haitian immigrants who are living legally in Springfield, Ohio, during his rally in Aurora on Friday. (Watch below.)

Vance has repeatedly used the same talking point during recent campaign events, and Trump said in an interview early this month that he “absolutely” would revoke the Haitians’ Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and deport them. On the same day as his rally in Aurora, Trump vowed that he plans to send “elite squads” of federal law enforcement officers to “hunt down, arrest, and deport” migrants all throughout the country.

It was likely inevitable that Trump and Vance would land here once they made attacking Ohio’s Haitian community a signature part of their campaign. But it’s important to explain why those immigrants are here legally because of their eligibility for TPS and humanitarian parole.

Martin Sutovec / Slovakia

And you just knew this was coming. This is from the AP. “Trump calls for adding 10,000 Border Patrol agents after derailing a bipartisan border bill.”

 Former President Donald Trump on Sunday proposed hiring 10,000 additional Border Patrol agents and giving them a $10,000 retention and signing bonus, after he derailed a bipartisan bill earlier this year that included funding for more border personnel.

Trump made his pledge during a rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona, roughly 260 miles north of the state’s border with Mexico. He accepted an endorsement from the agents’ union, the National Border Patrol Council, which is a longtime Trump backer that endorsed him during his prior two campaigns.

Trump has made illegal immigration the focus of his campaign and blamed Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, for a record spike in unauthorized crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. He frequently denounces people entering the U.S. illegally as invaders and criminals, and he has vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in American history if he is elected president again.

His rallies are getting horrifyingly worse.  He’s back to telling his crowds to beat up hecklers.  This time, a woman. “Trump suggests woman heckler at rally should ‘get the hell knocked out of her’. Former President Trump on Saturday suggested a woman heckling him should be physically harmed.”  This headline comes from MSNBC.  You can watch him threatening violence at the link.

All this comes behind General Milley’s interview with Bob Woodward, where he describes Trump as “fascist to the core.” Have you noticed this is something that should have been in the news before the book’s publishing?  What kind of  “journalist” does that?  This is from the Washington Post. “Trump is ‘fascist to the core,’ Milley says in Woodward’s book. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says Trump is “the most dangerous person to this country,” echoing dire warnings of others in national security circles.”  It’s reported by Ruby Cramer.

Milley, 66, served for more than a year as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump before continuing in the role under President Joe Biden.

Upon stepping down in September 2023 after more than 40 years in the military, Milley laid out his apparent concerns about Trump in a pointed retirement speech. “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator or wannabe dictator,” he said.

Woodward’s new book, “War,” due out Tuesday, follows Milley in the years after the Trump administration as he wrestles with escalating fears over the president he once served.

Milley was a source for Woodward’s 2021 book, “Peril,” sharing his worries about Trump’s mental stability and national security decisions, according to excerpts of his new book. Upon seeing Woodward again at a reception in March 2023, he told the author that his concerns had grown more dire.

“I glimpsed it when I talked to you back — for ‘Peril,’ but I now know it. I now know it,” he said.

“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” the general told Woodward. “Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.”

By the following year, Milley was receiving a “nonstop barrage of death threats” that he attributed to Trump’s political rhetoric and his fixation on retribution for his perceived enemies, Woodward writes.

After retiring, Milley installed bulletproof glass and blast-proof curtains

He’s also worried about being court-marshalled if Trump gets reinstalled at the White House.  Raw Story has a number of headlines you may want to check out.

 David McAfee / Raw Story:
‘Absolute chaos’ as ‘MAGA faithful were stranded’ in desert after California event: report

Brad Reed / Raw Story:
‘Vile stuff’: NYT shamed by its own former public editor for whitewashing Trump racism

But there is so much more today that it’s overwhelming.  The Washington Post reports this horrifying bit on the Trump Cult. “Hurricane recovery officials in N.C. relocated amid report of ‘armed militia,’ email shows. Safety fears are growing as misinformation collides with a large-scale federal recovery effort.”

Federal emergency response personnel directed employees operating Saturday in hard-hit Rutherford County, N.C., to stop working and move to a different area because of concerns over “armed militia” threatening government workers in the region, according to an email sent to federal agencies helping with hurricane response in the state.

Around 1 p.m. Saturday, an official with the U.S. Forest Service, which is supporting recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sent an urgent message to numerous federal agencies warning that “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately. The message stated that National Guard troops ‘had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA.’”

“The IMTs [incident management teams] have been notified and are coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county,” the email added.

Two federal officials confirmed the authenticity of the email, though it was unclear whether the quoted threat was seen as credible. The National Guard referred questions to FEMA when asked about the incident. One Forest Service official coordinating the Helene recovery said responders moved to a “safe area” and that at least some work in the area — which included clearing trees off dozens of damaged and blocked roads to help search-and-rescue crews, as well as groups delivering supplies — was paused.

 A local FOX news outlet reports a man has been arrested. “Man accused of threatening FEMA workers with assault rifle in western North Carolina.  I’m just a financial economist, but that’s a credible threat.

 A man is being charged after being accused of threatening FEMA workers in western North Carolina, according to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office.

At around 12:54 p.m. on Saturday, deputies got a report of a man with an assault rifle who made a comment about possibly harming FEMA workers providing Hurricane Helene disaster relief in the area of Lake Lure and Chimney Rock.

Rutherford County deputies alerted Lake Lure officers and other local agencies of the threat once they were made aware of it.

Yet another armed Trumper idiot was arrested at the rally in Coachella, California.  These supposed “assassination” attempts are getting old. “Would-be assassin or Trump-supporting ‘sovereign citizen’? What we know about suspect Vem Miller.  Local law enforcement described Miller as a ‘lunatic’ sovereign citizen plotting to kill Donald Trump – but he has reportedly denied meaning the former president any harm.” This is from The Independent.  Have we yet established that all these domestic terrorist loons are white guys?

Police arrested a man they said was armed with multiple weapons and inconsistent identification documents just outside a Donald Trump rally on Saturday in Coachella Valley, California, in what officials are describing as a thwarted third assassination attempt against the former president.

However, the suspect – described as a “sovereign citizen” – is believed to be a Trump fan and told a news outlet he didn’t mean the Republican candidate any harm.

Here’s everything we know about suspect Vem Miller, 49, who has denied wrongdoing.

How was he arrested?

Deputies stopped suspect Vem Miller in a black SUV around 5pm on Saturday about half a mile from the rally, after he allegedly managed to make it through an initial security checkpoint by claiming VIP and media credentials.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said at a press conference on Sunday that at a second stop, a deputy noticed that Miller’s SUV was in “disarray” with an “obviously fake” license plate, prompting deputies to investigate further.

Police then found that Miller allegedly had multiple driver’s licenses and passports with different names and possessed a loaded handgun and shotgun, both unregistered, as well as a high-capacity ammunition magazine. Sheriff Bianco said the markings on the license plate indicated Miller was part of “a group of individuals that claim to be ‘sovereign citizens,’” a right-wing movement that doesn’t believe in the legitimacy of the government.

The Independent has contacted Miller for comment.

What charges is he facing?

“Miller was taken into custody without incident and later booked at the John J. Benoit Detention Center for possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine,” the sheriff’s office said in the release.

Miller has denied he was near the rally to attack Trump.

The 49-year-old told Southern California News Group he was “shocked” to hear the arrest being described as an assassination plot, telling the outlet he’s a supporter of the former president.

“These accusations are complete bull****,” Miller said. “I’m an artist, I’m the last person that would cause any violence and harm to anybody.”

Josephine Harvey, who reports for HuffPo, writes, “Trump Insists He’s Not ‘Cognitively Impaired’ In Jumbled Rally Tangent. The former president also slid in a wildly exaggerated claim about the size of the crowd he drew a day earlier.”

Former President Donald Trump insisted he’s not “cognitively impaired” during a wandering, stream-of-consciousness spiel at a rally in Arizona on Sunday that, if anything, raised further questions about his mental acuity.

The Republican nominee started out his rambling thought by criticizing the “fake news” media at the Prescott Valley event, observing: “That’s a lot of cameras.”

“Who the hell can do this two, three times a day?” he continued, pivoting abruptly to talk, apparently, about the number of public appearances he makes. “One little mistake, if I pronounce a word slightly wrong, and I tend not to go back, because I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to say, ‘Uh, excuse me, let me go.’”

“So I speak for hours, mostly without a teleprompter, really, mostly. One mispronunciation of a word — ‘He’s cognitively impaired. He’s getting old, he’s getting old. He mispronounced a word like the name of the gang.’ If I did. You know, I think I got it perfectly, didn’t I?” he went on.

“But if they see any, they watch for weeks and weeks, for weeks and weeks. I’m up here, ranting and raving. Last night, 100,000 people. Flawless. Ranting and raving. I’m ranting and raving. Not a mistake.”

Trump held a campaign rally in Coachella, California, on Saturday, that almost certainly did not have 100,000 attendees. While the exact figure is unclear, a permit issued for the event reportedly capped attendance at 15,000.

There goes that 78 Billionaire again with his constant whining.

And Republicans are still trying to disrupt voting. This is also from the Washington Post. “Michigan GOP candidate’s ad aimed at Black voters has wrong election date. The Michigan Legislative Black Caucus accused Republican Tom Barrett’s campaign of misleading Black voters with an ad carrying the wrong election date.”

Tom Barrett, a Republican vying for a Michigan congressional seat, is facing calls for an investigation after an ad from his campaign incorrectly listed Election Day as Nov. 6 in a Black-owned Michigan newspaper.

In a complaint filed Sunday with the state attorney general, the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus accused Barrett’s campaign of misleading Black voters to suppress turnout — something the group of Black state lawmakers said could violate a Michigan law that prohibits intentionally spreading misinformation about the election process to deter an individual from voting.

“At best, Tom Barrett and his Campaign have committed a shocking oversight which will undoubtedly lead to confusion by Black voters in Lansing,” states the complaint, which calls on the attorney general as well as a local county prosecutor to launch a probe. “And, at worst, this ad could be part of an intentional strategy to ‘deter’ Black voters by deceiving them into showing up to vote on the day after the 2024 election.”

All of this would probably make even Richard Nixon Blush.  Where’s Karma when you need it?  Get out that Vote, Friends!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

My name was Richard Nixon only now I’m a girl
you wouldn’t know it but I used to be the king of the world
compared to last time I look like I’ve hit the skids
living in the project with my two little kids
it’s not what I would of chose
now you have to call me Rose
I was boss of bosses the last time around
I lived by cunning and ambition unbound
the suckers said they’d stand behind me right or wrong
as if they thought that hubris was the mark of the strong
I was an arrogant man
but now I’ve got it in hand
it’s not what I would have chose
now you have to call me Rose
call me Rose
call me Rose it’s not what I would have chose
now you have to call me Rose
My name was Richard Nixon only now I’m a girl
you wouldn’t know it but I used to be the king of the world
I’m back here learning what it is to be poor
to have no power but the strength to endure
I’ll perform my penance well
maybe the memoir will sell
it’s not what I would of chose
now you have to call me Rose

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Bruce Cockburn
Call Me Rose lyrics © Rotten Kiddies Music Llc, Bro N Sis Music Inc., Bro N Sis Music, Inc.